LA PIETRA E L’ACQUA L’Italia liberata dai Goti (Italy freed from the Goths) which he considered a new Iliad. But Andrea Palladio in Venezia I’m convinced that this Italy freed from the Goths will fail to leave its mark on people’s me- A novel by M.A. Orefice mories. Like a good father, he baptized me a second time, choosing the name of the goddess who befriended Ulysees. He also became my greatest ally and with him I began to travel, It was an August day in 1580 on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Andrea’s head was study, learn the art of conversation. I no longer cut stones, but became an architect, invented throbbing with pain and the sickly taste of blood filled his mouth. He had fallen from the my own style and met influential people. Alvise, Daniele, Jacopo and Marcantonio were my scaffolding onto a pile of white stones. “I don’t want to die, I have to finish the church, the admirers and friends. They supported the pope, and had revolutionary ideas about this watery pronaos isn’t built, do you hear me, Lord? I will build the pronaos to celebrate you, please, city, fighting to change things, unsuccessfully, because the majority sided with Jacopo San- God, help me, don’t leave me here in the water, take me to the trees on land, to breath in the sovino – have you ever heard of him? To my misfortune, I have heard this name often and it resin and grass scented air”. has defeated me many times. His success depended on the fact that he was not a local man, He could see a blurred face through the shadows. It was Antonio, the head mason, and his he was a ‘foresto’ as they say in Veneto, a foreigner, who was a friend of Michelangelo – at voice reached him faintly, from afar, asking continuously “Master, where are we? Do you least that’s what they said – and of the Aretino. He had been apprenticed to the best masters know me?” “Yes, I know you, you’re the one with the close set eyes, green pantaloons and in Florence and Rome, the Library you see in St. Mark’s Square, and the Fabbriche Nuove, effeminate voice, but I can’t get the words out, it’s cold; damned city, you’re taking me away near Rialto, are his and not mine. at the wrong time and Antonio can do nothing for me. This is the end for me, seventy two ye- Life is a stage, you have to play your part well, and he was a good actor. Architecture is also ars gone in a moment, with my mouth full of sickly sweet red gel. That’s it, Antonio, wet my a stage, we build scenes, and you are now on the stage. Imagine that you can see a man with lips, freshen my brow … the sun’s getting dark, a moment for my memories, then there will a long beard, a tricorn on his head and a purple cape buttoned over a long damask robe. He be the light from white souls or pitch black, with no voice, no war, no pity, just silence, alone, is carrying some papers in his hand, documents about the lagoon; his name is Alvise Cornaro. incommensurable, like the sea surrounding this island. What fun to roll about in the grass, Alvise shows his documents; he dreams of a theatre on the water, a space in which everyone greet the sky from among ears of wheat; this cold stone under my head is lifeless, as my old has their place, just like in the universe, a theatre where there are combats between bears and body will soon be, and you, reader, weren’t expecting, were you, to be present at my death, dogs, wild bulls and men, and a scene where water fills and empties the stage for naval battles, this mysterious death about which millions of words have been written: it’s just as absurd as as in ancient Rome. He wants to build his theatre on the water between the Giudecca and the all other deaths, there’s nothing left to say, nothing left to do. You want to know who I am, Punta della Dogana, on the velma, a type of muddy lagoon uncovered by the tides. He also but are you really interested, does it really matter to you?” dreams of a fountain gushing and sparkling in St. Mark’s Square, between the columns of the “Call somebody, the master is dying” shouts Antonio. Time is almost up for me, I don’t know wharf, a fountain supplied with the water of the Sile or Brenta rivers, then a hill on another whether I’ll be able to tell my story, perhaps the words won’t be clear. velma between San Giorgio Maggiore and St. Mark’s. He wants to use earth excavated from the canals and landscape the hill with trees, avenues and a loggia on top, so that a spectator “My mother’s name was Marta and my father was called Pietro. Ours was a poor family and from St. Mark’s Square can see the fountain, hill and theatre at a single glance. Speaking of we lived in Padua, where I was born on 8th November 1508. At 12 years of age I was already fountains, has it ever occurred to you that when you walk around this city you see only wells, working for a certain Bartolomeo, a rogue who paid a pittance and treated his apprentices often dry, and no gushing water?; ironic, isn’t it, you live practically in water and yet have to like slaves. I fled to some relatives in Vicenza and there became an apprentice to a stonecut- take a boat and go miles away to get some. ter. One day, through a dusty grey windowpane, I saw her. She had stopped just outside the Another of Alvise’s ideas is to surround the city with high walls and a park with entertainment workshop and was talking to a neighbour. She was beautiful, so beautiful that not one of my facilities where people can go in summer to escape the humid heat of the canals, or where they works could compete with the light in her dark eyes, the harmony of her body, the sweetness can store wood in the event of a siege. I know these thoughts, and my theatre will make its of her long curly hair. We married almost immediately and our darling children were born, début here on San Giorgio Maggiore, at the end of the Grand Canal, on the waters that Alvise Leonida, Marcantonio, Orazio, Silla and Zenobia. It was a joy to play with them at an age dreamed of. when the world was theirs, every fairy tale came true, and for them their daddy became a ma- gician, a giant, a horse. Allegradonna was young and passionate. I was sometimes ashamed The white stones are stained with red, Antonio is watching me. The other workers have that I didn’t have the money to surprise her with the gifts that only princes can give. arrived and they form a group on the right of the picture, bending over me. Antonio is in the Up to the age of thirty I was a nobody, a humble provincial stonecutter, until I met a friend centre and is spreading his arms. My body lies face up among the pale stones, my face turned who changed my life: his name was Giangiorgio and he charged me with the building of a towards you, my right hand is pointing to the ground. The landscape in the background new loggia for his villa. He was my second father, he taught me about architecture. He was shows the church covered in scaffolding and a city on the water. also a writer and wanted to standardize the use of the Italian language with works such as I see only shadows, this is not a triumphant way to go, but then again I came into the world very humbly. My first commission was the altar for the San Pantalon church, don’t laugh, was to give a reception that evening; in his house, which stood nearby, you could meet Sanso- I know the name is funny, but that was it. Sansovino was building his Library and I was in vino, of course, Titian, the ambassadors of Rome and Savoy, and other illustrious people. charge of the work for the altar in San Pantalon. I got my own back later with San Francesco I continued to watch the icy road, what sins I had on my conscience since I had met the Com- della Vigna, an unfinished Sansovino church: my façade did not observe his canons, it was a pagnia della Calza degli Accesi; the work was urgent, they were in a hurry to perform a play work of art in itself, a manifesto of my architecture, even if no-one noticed. taken from a story by Aristobulus. One day they said they needed an extra column, the next “Master, don’t die”. “They’re pathetic, they think that saying such things will help me; I day they wanted one less, the statues had to be bigger, and what blundering fools the workers feel my kidneys on fire, my breathing is like that of a dying animal, my hands are trembling, they had recommended were. I can still see the amazement on their faces when I answered: images and words swim around in my mind, which returns to an evening in December 1562.